Known egg donor stipulating one child only

[Pouragandt]

Gosh, well I've had a bit of a shocker today.

So after several losses following having our healthy daughter 10 years ago, my sister kindly agreed to being mine and my husband's egg donor so that we could try and conceive again. We also used a sperm donor and were blessed with a healthy son 2 years ago.

We have always wanted 3 babies so decided now's the time to try again - we're very fortunate to have 5 good quality frozen embryos from the IVF cycle with my sister's eggs and the sperm donor. I'm 42 so time is of the essence!

I let my sister know yesterday that we were going to do another transfer as soon as possible and she said she feels let down and disappointed that we didn't discuss it with her first.

She then went on to say today that she only went ahead with the egg donation on the assumption that it was for our 'long-awaited second child' and she doesn't want us going again. I'm so upset that I may not have another baby and that I might have to destroy our embryos (after having lost 3 babies in the past; one full term) just to respect my sister's wishes. Am I right in thinking she's being unreasonable?! Please send help! X

@Delphinium20
Don't tell your DDs not to donate.
For years, I said if I die, the world can have everything apart from my eggs. Then aged 30 I was diagnosed with cancer and sat in a fertility clinic hoping to freeze eggs and not knowing whether I'd ever be able to have my own child. I changed my view in a split second.
I was able to freeze my eggs. I survived the cancer. I have a gorgeous baby and am trying for another.
But for those not so fortunate, egg donation means a baby growing in the womb with the birth and natural bond and all that jazz.
I can't donate because of my medical history, but I'd encourage very young women to think of others and do so. They are eggs - you throw millions away each month so why not help someone else? Donating eggs isn't a walk in the park but it's trivial when compared to the amazing gift that you are potentially giving someone else.
And if you've got two DDs, why not bring them so that (if the need arises) one can help the other to experience pregnancy and motherhood with a baby that's a close genetic match? I really find it so unnatural and upsetting that one sister would not want to help the other in this way. Even more so, when the donation thingy is all done and dusted anyway.

Who the mother is considered to be is subjective, based on intent isn't it?
In surrogacy many countries consider the genetic parents to be the 'real' ones, since it is their DNA and they will be raising the baby. In egg donation, I bet those same countries see the pregnant woman as the real mum and the egg donor as contributing genetic material but not as a parent, presumably because it is the of woman who wants and will raise the baby.
Whole thing is a total minefield and needs much more compulsory in depth counselling than people are currently receiving if the OP's situation is anything to go by!

seriously @LewishamMum, that is disturbing. Hell no...I would NEVER suggest to my beloved DDs to risk their health, their future fertility and their emotional well being to give away their children to strangers. Hard No. I find that you pushing this, calling it 'trivial' is pretty outrageous.

I hav

oops...cut off too soon

I have sisters and love them dearly, but they would NEVER dream to ask something like that of each other.

Whole thing is a total minefield and needs much more compulsory in depth counselling than people are currently receiving if the OP's situation is anything to go by!

Exactly!

@Delphinium20
Not trivial. I said not a walk in the park, but trivial COMPARED to......what the donor is giving.
They are not risking their health, fertility (seriously?), or emotional well being. They are helping someone. If I donate to charity I'm helping a total stranger. If I was in serious need I hope someone (including a total stranger) would come to my aid. What's wrong with that? I'd want to bring my kids up to help others, including strangers. One day they might be the ones in need, and if they are not, they should count themselves very lucky and still help others.

@Delphinium20
It seems weird to me you would not want to even ask your sisters something like this.
Anyway, OPs sisters already done the work; she's simply being selfish. I wonder if she's the older sibling and used to bossing the younger around? Presumably she doesn't have more than 2 kids, so feels able to judge her sister.

@LewishamMum Giving away your CHILD is not equivalent to donating your used dresses. I think all mothers should warn their young daughters away from the trap of 'being kind' and 'giving a gift'. Women's body parts should not be used like that - and children should not be so easily given up. Unlike adoption, an egg donor has no guarantee that the family raising her child is safe - there are no checks to ensure egg recipients aren't abusive, awful people! Your arguments are quite disturbing.

And egg stimulation/IVF does have risks for future fertility.

www.weareeggdonors.com/blog/2015/11/13/leah-campbell-on-egg-donation-and-endometriosis

@LewishamMum well, I love my sisters very much, so no, it's not weird that I would never ask them to give me their baby...pretty sure I'm not an outlier on this.

@Delphinium20
It's not a child, it's EGGS. Every month you throw millions don't the toilet FFS!!! I wouldn't do that to a child lol.
I'm not talking used dresses; I was thinking more of organ donation actually, although the greater the kindness the greater the need and benefit for the recipient.
And OPs sister knows she is not abusive etc. (Otherwise, why donate the first time?) She's done the work, whatever the risks and consequences, there's nothing further to do, than potentially be happy her sister is having another child and she's an Auntie again. What an unnatural creature she must be.

@Delphinium20
Now it's a baby that's being given up! But it's not. It's too small to see, and it's basically just blood.

It feels like you are comparing ENCOURAGING women to help their less fortunate sisters (generally, or literally like here), to forcefully adopting new borns for no good reason.
I'm totalled baffled by why you can't see the difference, or have any sympathy for those who can't have children any other way.

Having my own DDs and having biological nieces, it is very, very clear which DDs are genetically mine and my sisters'. A woman may give away her eggs, but they turn into her children when born.

As to strangers having one of my eggs...no, I couldn't handle that. Knowing that one or more children could be out in the world, and not in our family, seems like such a horrible loss. We'd all worry about the child and wonder if they were ok. I can't imagine going through that, and I wouldn't wish it on my DDs.

I have sympathy for people who can't conceive, but they don't have a right to my DDs eggs. Children aren't gifts or prizes or material goods.

@LewishamMum, I know you have a vested interest in this, however do you realise that these donated eggs “which would otherwise be thrown away ” are being donated with the sole purpose of creating a new human being? So they aren’t just eggs are they! The biological mother of that child born as a result of those donated eggs should have a major say in what happens to them. Look at it from the child’s POV as well. Many donor conceived children want to know where they come from. Would you deny them that right? Luckily in this country they have they right to be given this information as adults.

I don't believe that this is something you can ask for because many people do consider the baby to be their own DC and it's quite an invasive process to donate. I think if it happens it has to be freely offered, without pressure or feeling obligated.
I would not be happy for my DD to do this and would actively object to it if she was offering this to anyone but a sibling. I would do it for my own sister but not for anyone else.

It's not 'basically blood', it's genetic code to create your offspring.

Oh and I’m with @Delphinium20, when my DD is a bit older, I’ll be making sure she that she never donates her eggs.

@Delphinium20 @Tubbs99
Never said the donor didn't have the RIGHT to decide whether to donate; only that it was a great kindness and I would really encourage healthy young women to think about it. Obviously I'm not in favour of forced donation of eggs or sperm, and I absolutely do think there should be the right for a child to know the truth and find the donor (aged 18).
But I also think that once you have donated and embryo's have been created, then they belong to the person who purchased or was given them, for whom it may be the only chance to have children/children of a genetic match to a sibling.
Irrespective of whether that is the law, I think it should be, and morally I think it's just wrong for a donor to have some kind of control over others once the donation is done.

@Pouragandt I do understand that , I was just trying to explain how your sister may feel to @MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously as she seems rather blinkered . In reality do you think your sister would have given you the eggs if you had had 2 existing children though ?

Threads been derailed slightly but OP I would respect your sisters wishes.

@ LewishamMum the children born of egg and sperm donation are the biological children of the donor. This isn’t a belief, it is a fact. Why else would it be legal for the children of egg and sperm donation to trace their iological parents when they reach 18?

You can carry a baby through donation, you can give birth to it, bring it up as your own, but it will ever be your child.

*biological

And *never

It's not blinkered to disagree Floral. There are plenty of perspectives on this thread which see things only from the pov of the sister. I prefer the word 'balance'

AlternativePerspective that's not how the law views it though. In surrogacy the pg woman is deemed to be the mother even when the embryo has no genetic link to her.

All this talk of the embryos now belong to the OP, the sister is just being spiteful, she already donated them, they're just eggs...

Meanwhile everyone flying past the existing children in this situation.

The sister's children who will one day grow up to learn their cousins are their half siblings.

The donor conceived child who will find out their mum who raised them is biologically their aunt and that their aunt is their biological mum, but their uncle is just their uncle, and their bio dad just a stranger.

The elder sibling who has a half sibling but will eventually discover that sibling has a closer tie to her cousins than she will ever have.

I'm not against egg donation and have a friend who has a donor conceived child. But when you take eggs from a family member the can of worms is so much deeper. To bring another child into this without additional counseling on all sides is so, so wrong. Just because the "transaction has been made" as one poster put it, doesn't mean you should just go ahead and schedule the next transfer.

At least reopen the discussion on what this means for the children/siblings who will one day be adults themselves and looking for answers. Surely you would want to look them in the eye and tell them you did everything you could to make sure this was the right decision for EVERYONE. Not just, the eggs were now mine so I went ahead and used them.